diamond geezer

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Dear Taxpayer,

Since taking our seats at the heart of Government, the full scale of Labour's financial deception has become clear. Scandalous budgetary practice has been rampant, leaving a minefield of ticking economic timebombs across Whitehall. New ministers have been shocked to discover that our country's precious reserves have been mishandled by the former guardians of the public purse. This scandalous extravagance cannot be allowed to continue. We must cut unnecessary government waste, and we must cut it now.

One particularly shameless example has tumbled out of the closet in East London - a little known redevelopment project called "The Olympics". This is a major construction programme project - signed, sealed and part-delivered under the previous regime - whose breadth and scale is quite shocking. A blatant attempt to curry electoral favour across a cluster of Labour-leaning constituencies. A brief sporting meet-up that's essentially little more than a glorified TV talent show. And all kicking off in only 800 days time.

We were shocked to discover that nearly ten billion pounds of taxpayers money has been committed to these shenanigans by the previous administration. Your hard-earned money has been locked-up, in secret, by deceitful ministers colluding with evil civil servants. We must act with force to derail this squandering partisan gravy train.

A giant stadium is being built, hidden away in the crime-ridden wastelands of Stratford. Who knew? Apparently it'll only be used for a fortnight, mostly by foreigners, and then mothballed. A more scandalous waste of Treasury funds it is hard to imagine. How many full time nursing posts could this money pay for? What use is this facility to hard-working families in Middle England? How does this help our Heroes in Afghanistan?

And there's more. Rummaging around in our predecessor's filing cabinet has revealed further London locations where profligate building projects are underway. A fancy swimming pool constructed nowhere near where anybody lives. The desecration of a World Heritage lawn in Greenwich. A shooting gallery in Woolwich glorifying big guns in front of impressionable teenagers. It's political correctness gone mad.

Promoting ancient Greek idealism during an era of budgetary squeeze makes no sense whatsoever. And yet that's the shameful financial situation which the New Coalition has inherited. Labour has handcuffed the country to irreversible spending commitments, and signed us all up to a prolonged spell of televised recreational socialism. Quite frankly we're not surprised to discover that the BBC is involved.

So steel yourself for immediate Olympic cuts. We're already in negotiations with the organising committee, and we're going to force them to slash their budgets wherever possible. We're cancelling the handball, and any other pointless sports dominated by Europe. We're going to ask athletes to pay market rates for bed and breakfast, because it's only fair. We're trimming half a kilometre off the 1500m to save on wear and tear. We're shifting all broadcasting to Sky HD to bring in extra subscription money. We're getting a refund on the official 2012 logo and replacing it by a Union Jack with a bulldog in the middle. That disabled fortnight, we're cancelling it. And all that parkland legacy rubbish, no way, because the rest of the country shouldn't have to pay to make East Londoners' leisure time a bit prettier.

Let the austerityGames of 1948 be our new funding model. We must look to the future with fresh hope and far fewer lunatic spending commitments. And I promise we'll never successfully bid for anything like this ever again.